1887
Volume 9, Issue 4-5
  • ISSN 1879-9264
  • E-ISSN: 1879-9272
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Abstract

Abstract

The present study explores the acquisition of the Russian accusative [] case inflections in two groups of bilingual children (Russian-Dutch and Russian-Hebrew) who acquire Russian as their Heritage Language (HL) and two groups of monolingual Russian-speaking children within the (MacWhinney, 20082012). Seventy-two typically developing children participated in the study. Children’s performance on three tasks was compared: elicited production, forced-choice comprehension and sentence repetition.

The current study confirmed the predictions of the : monolingual children view the [] case inflection as a reliable cue. Conversely, bilingual children showed lower accuracy on nouns which require the use of a dedicated [] marker. Similarly, the percentage of children manifesting sensitivity to [] case cue was low in bilinguals. The findings of the study extend the to patterns of HL acquisition in bilinguals. Cue detection in HL for bilinguals is challenged when exposure is limited.

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2019-10-09
2025-04-30
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): accusative case; Heritage Language; Russian; the Unified Competition Model
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